The Reality Demon
by Rainb0wshine
Summary: It was just like any other day in Gravity Falls. Dipper and Mabel go to the lake, and when Dipper gets dragged to the bottom by something, the Pines family can't do anything but watch and wait. Dipper resurfaces- but something's wrong with him. Whatever happened at the bottom of the lake changed all of time and space, and there's only one person who could help. Er, triangle.
1. Reality

It started out like any other day. Dipper was sitting on his bed, trying to crack some code or other with his journal spread across his lap, papers littering his bed, while Mabel cuddled Waddles on the other side of the room.

Dipper nervously chewed on one end of the pencil while he looked around suspiciously. "Whap whap." Mabel poked Dipper on the nose with another atrocious invention of hers: Stick Taped to Another Stick So I Can Reach Things from Far Distances.

Dipper smacked the ridiculous thing away, snapping off half the stick, and hunkered down lower. "Hey!" Mabel frowned, sitting up and marching over to Dipper, flopping down on his bed. "What's wrong with you lately? I was just trying to cheer you up."

Dipper frowned. The creases in his face tugged, and Mabel saw how dark his eyes were. "Woah. You don't look so good. What's wrong?"

"Nothing, nothing," Dipper replied in irritation, swatting his sister away, eyes still locked to the journal.

"No lying!" Mabel screeched, smacking his head and face with her palms, letting out another attack screech.

"Jeez Mabel, calm down!" Dipper yelled, bringing his noodle arms up to protect himself from her merciless onslaught. "Mabel stop! Okay, I'll tell you!"

Mabel sat back, but got in one last poke before settling down and getting serious. Her brother took off his hat and wiped his hand across his bangs, and for a moment she could see his silly birthmark before his long hair hid it once again. He set the journal to his side and locked his hands behind his head, staring up at the infamous moldy ceiling goop, and the spot where the roof continued to leak.

It was dumping rain outside, which wasn't surprising seeing it was almost the end of summer. That made Dipper feel sad for a moment, but he quickly shook his head as if to forget problems of the future. There were worse current... problems... Afoot. His eyes followed the drips as they fell down and hit their almost overflowing bucket with a small sploosh.

"I don't know how to explain it, Mabel," Dipper confessed, closing his eyes and fighting back the uncomfortable pit in his stomach. "It's been like this since..."

Dipper shuddered as he thought back. Him and Mabel had been playing in the lake their Grunkle Stan long ago had tried to teach them how to fish for ten hours straight. And of course, things went wrong. Why wouldn't they?

Dipper rubbed the back of his head. "I dunno, Mabel. I just get this feeling... I should have drowned, you know?"

Dipper sat on the dock of the lake, his legs kicking the water below him. Loud clunking footsteps up the dock let Dipper look up just in time to avoid a vicious clump of mud and sand set hurtling his way, leaping into the water.

A silly giggle, and Dipper's head popped above the surface of the water just to get nailed in the head with another mudball. "Ugh, Mabel!" Dipper wiped his face and spat mud out of his mouth with a groan.

Mabel giggled again. "Cannon ball!" She leapt into the lake beside him, showering him in splashes. "You're going to get it!" Dipper shouted as the raced to the shore, splashing each other as they went.

Just like any other day at Gravity Falls, the kids were enjoying their time outside and adventuring. Grunkle Stan had let everyone have the day off, seeing as it was another one of those hot days; and probably one of the last of them. Tourists were hiding from the sun, and wouldn't be thrilled to be caught in an old stinky shack without air conditioning, so the Mystery Shack gang took a break.

Soos was in his boat, along with Wendy who was sun tanning, and Grunkle Stan who was trying to scam them into spreading lotion on his back.

"Hey, dudes! Fish feeding time!" Soos called out, dumping a whole barrel of fish food into the lake.

"Good luck, Soos," Mabel called out with a smile full of braces, "but no one around here has seen or caught any fish all day! They must be sleeping," Mabel added, pressing her hands to her cheeks at the thought of adorable, sleeping fish in their little fish pjs and beds.

"There's no one even here, Mabel," Dipper rolled his eyes. It was rather strange, but the whole lake had been closed down. However, that didn't exactly stop Grunkle Stan from spending a hot day by the lake, or a few other boats posted around.

"I think there's something weird going on around here." Dipper finally found the shore and raced to where he left his journal on the shore along his a towel and his backpack. He quickly sat down and flipped through it, while Mabel groaned. "Come on, Dipper! Don't you ever put that thing away?! Come on, let's go have fun!" Mabel gestered to the lake. "AH! Ouch! Hot sand hot sand!" Mabel raced back into the water.

"Lake monster, lake monster," Dipper muttered as he flipped through the pages. "It has to be some sort of lake monster... Why does that sound familiar- ah ha!" Dipper grinned as he read up on the page. "The Lake-Bottom Monster! Mabel, come check this out!"

"Ahahha, you said bottom!" Mabel and Soos cheered from the boat, dumping more fish feed into the lake.

Dipper rolled his eyes and sat back into the sand with a huff, tracing his finger across the page as he read about it. "Every year, this dangerous monster awakens from it's deep sleep at the bottom of the lake, only to ravenously eat anything and everything it can before it falls asleep again for the next year. The Lake-Bottom monster is harmless, unless you find yourself in the lake with it when it's awake. Luckily, I have convinced the managers to close the lake for a week around the time it awakens, so it can never hurt anyone ever again."

Dipper frowned. Hadn't Stan said something about the lake being closed this week?

"Where's the date this thing wakes up?" Dipper mumbles, his hands starting to sweat as he thumbs desperately through the pages. Dipper looked up at his friends and family, all laughing and playing on the boat, before digging through his backpack for the black light pen that his parents had gotten him for Christmas ages ago along with a pack of spy gear. Most of the stuff in it didn't work, but the pen had lasted quite a long while.

Dipper scanned over the page with the black light, and written straight across the whole thing was a date that sent Dipper running and screaming down the dock.

August 11th.

"Get out of the lake!"

That was today.

Dipper narrowed his eyes and rubbed his temples. It had been two weeks ago, and Dipper still couldn't remember a thing. One thing he was being drowned at the bottom of the lake, and next he was back in his room in the Mystery Shack, surprisingly unharmed.

Mabel was silent at the edge of his bed, and Dipper continued. "I've felt strange since I woke up that day. At first I passed it off as aftershock of nearly dying, but I think something happened down there, Mabel. Something important."

Mabel cracked. She looked up, tears in her eyes as she began sinking down into her sweater. Sweater Town.

"You were down there too long, Dipper," she whispered, shuffling close to him. "I thought- We thought..." Dipper hugged his sister close, then let her go. "I'm not," he reassured. "I didn't. I'm fine, Mabel. I just think..."

Dipper stopped. Mabel was shriveled up, tears finally dropping from her eyes. He shook his head, feeling grim. There was no way he could tell her now. "I think- that I might finally be going through puberty?"

Thank God for Mabel's gullibility. The guilt weighed on him (as well as embarrassment. Was that really the best excuse he could think of?) for lying but it was for the best. If Mabel really knew what was happening...

The black dreams, filled with agony and pain, the horror of watching the brown color of his eyes slowly turn green in the mirror, just to blink and watch it disappear, the buckets of black goo that dispelled from his stomach every night...

Something was wrong. Something was definitely wrong, and Dipper had a bad feeling about it.


	2. Chaos

**Hi everyone! Thanks for the reviews and love 3 I didn't think I'd get three reviews on my first chapter of my first story O: Just so everyone knows, I'll be trying to update as soon as I can, but just like the rest of you, I can get distracted. If I don't update for more than a week, it's called writers block ._. Thanks everyone! Don't forget to leave suggestions about things you might want to see! Enjoy chapter two! **

Dipper woke up with blood in his mouth. He sat straight up, a moment of fleeting panic crossing his eyes as he sputtered, covering his hands with his mouth. He raced to the bathroom just in time to get into the toilet, where he doubled over and emptied the vile black substance into the toilet. He grew sick as he finally realized what it was.

Blood.

Dipper flicked on the light to stare at the red mess in the toilet. His hands shook as he wiped the blood from his mouth, got sick again at the sight of it, and puked again.

Definitely not healthy, Dipper concluded as he smashed the light so everything was dark again. Hunched over the sink, Dipper gasped for breath, looking up into the mirror just to lose it again.

His eyes- they were glowing. Green, greener than the grass. He blinked and they were gone. Normal brown. He gazed at the old busted clock, which read 3:14. Of course, it had been stuck like that for as long as Dipper could remember, the real, but it sure was in the dead of the night.

Holding his stomach, Dipper hobbled back to the attic and crawled into bed, pulling the covers over him. But he couldn't stop shaking. He was so cold, so cold. Dipper squeezed his eyes closed tight- ready for round two.

He almost cried out as his head exploded, fireworks sparkling in his eyes. Oh, the headaches. Dipper held his head, tears threatening to spill from his eyes. He wiped them away fiercely, just to see dark black liquid coating his hands.

Phase three, hallucinations. Dipper struggled not to scream as the black stuff poured from his eyes, suddenly unable to control it. ITS NOT REAL, DIPPER. ITS NOT REAL.

And suddenly, the black filled the room. He was drowning again. Drowning, drowning in black. It washed out his eyes, clogged his nose, found its way down his throat... He was suffocating.

Dipper was dying.

Everything was black.

Dipper woke with a gasp, grabbing his stomach and panting. His mouth tasted like blood again, and Dipper groaned as he cracked his jaw. The insides of his cheeks, and lips- they HURT. He must of been chewing on them in his sleep. He stretched his arms above his head, internally crying in relief at the sight of the sunlight cascading through their window. Daytime. Safety.

"Good morning, Dipper!" Mabel called cheerfully as she pulled on her latest sweater- a navy blue base, with a gray smiley face on it that didn't look happy, nor sad. "Grunkle Stan is making Stancakes again!" She bolted out of the attic before Dipper could get a word in, and settled into the morning routine.

Stripping out of his sweaty, and sickeningly blood stained pjs, he stepped into the shower and stood under the hot water in bliss.

Pulling on an orange shirt and a long sleeved navy blue jacket, Dipper still shivered. He slapped his hat over his head after dutifully scrubbing away at the birthmark that prevailed all 12 years of his life, and with no end results.

It wasn't until Dipper picked up his toothbrush to brush his teeth that the real problems begun.

Dipper opened his mouth in shock as he looked at his reflection. He brushed his fingers across the top row, stopping in horror to look at what looked like fangs, just beginning to grow sharp, like a dog's, or even-

Dipper screeched and ripped off his shirt, checking for bite marks and other signs that a vampire might have bitten him. "Wait. Duh..." He turned back to his reflection. If he was a vampire, then he wouldn't be able to see him looking into his own, tired looking eyes. Which decided, in that moment, to flicker green.

Dipper looked away as a cold fear took over him, clutching his stomach once more as nausea spilled over again. Dipper ran his tongue over his teeth, waiting for the moment to pass. He winced. No wonder where the cuts had come from.

Standing up straight once he felt better, Dipper looked back into the mirror to find simple brown eyes staring back at him.

"I have to find out what's wrong with me," Dipper muttered to himself as he left the bathroom, heading downstairs to where Mabel and Stan were eatting breakfast. BEFORE ANYONE ELSE FIGURES OUT.

FIGURES OUT WHAT? Dipper thought back to himself. He sat himself at the table and poked at the pancakes, sighing in discontent. He hadn't been hungry for a week. He spilled the pancakes onto the floor when Mabel wasn't looking and Waddles seemed to understand Dipper's intent stare, gobbling down the pancakes before she noticed.

Dipper's shoulders sagged with weight. He didn't know himself why he hadn't told his family yet about what he had been going through, but somewhere deep inside, Dipper thought it to be a bad idea. There was something about Grunkle Stan he couldn't just put his finger on, and it subjected him to suspicion.

Mabel, however, was another case. She was his twin sister, for heavens sake! The first thing she asked him when he had first found the journal was, "What, you're really not going to show me?"

But he didn't have the heart to tell her. She was too carefree and happy, and honestly he shouldn't have pulled her into the paranormal in the first place. It was too dangerous- and Dipper knew at once he couldn't tell her what happened.

Even he couldn't tell her what happened. What was happening to him, Dipper didn't know.

But every day, Dipper felt progressively worse. There was something clawing at his belly. Something was happening to him. He needed to find out.

"Uh... Non-specific excuse," Dipper chanted and sat up and bolted upstairs to the attic, grabbing his journal and heading out to the roof. Stan lifted a finger to his eye to wipe away a tear and sniffed. "The kid really understands me."

Meanwhile, Dipper sat on the edge of the roof, flipping through his journal frantically. He had to be missing something. Something was taking over his body, something ways-

Dipper finally found his hand, resting on the page of the Demon Dorito. Dipper gritted his teeth in frustration. Damn isosceles triangle. Dipper hadn't had many run-ins with Bill since the whole sock puppet incident, but he had been the subject of torment in a few of his dreams since. Bill definitely left a bad taste in his mouth; forcing him to do the Lamby Lamby Dance while he could only sit helpless, or be forced to dress up as Stan's favorite Pre-Teen Wolf Boy.

Bill had a sick sense of humor, Dipper had concluded. PAIN IS HILARIOUS. Dipper rolled his eyes. Wouldn't the damn triangle find this whole thing just a blast? It was perfect. Lots of blood, wolf fangs, dementia-

Was Bill Cipher the guy behind all this? Er, triangle. Dipper narrowed his eyes at the small picture of him. Even without a mouth, Dipper could see the smirk. He was almost sure at this point; Bill was trying to take over his body again!

Dipper leapt up and angrily glared at the open space around him. "Bill?! I know you're there!"

No response. "You said you were always watching. Were you watching when I was dragged to the bottom of the lake?" Dipper tried again, and again. No answer.

This lead to frustration. Dipper threw the journal and it landed on the roof with a sad clatter. He pressed his hands against his eyes and wiped them roughly. He wiped them on his shirt, staring off into the forest until he felt a drip sliding down his face.

He hadn't even noticed he had started crying. Dipper brought his hand up to wipe it away when his heart nearly stopped. Black, black everywhere. On his shirt, all over his face... His eyes, they wouldn't stop, and this time, it wasn't a dream.

"Dipper!" Someone screamed from below. Dipper could hardly keep himself from standing, everything going black as he let himself fall to his knees, dangerously close to the roof's edge. "Dipper!" The voice sounded again, only this time more distant. It sounded like Mabel.

Dipper was struggling to breathe. The air caught in his throat every time he took a ragged breath and he trembled as he struggled to see the sunlight through all the black in his vision.

Damn kid. Why do you always have to find yourself mixed up in all this trouble?

B-Bill?

Dipper felt a sudden rush of relief. Someone was there, despite it being someone he hated more than almost anything. Although, his words confused him. Bill sounded... Dissapointed. Upset, even.

A moment passed, and Dipper started to doubt he had even heard Bill in the first place.

Yes, Pine Tree, it's me. In the flesh.

You don't even have flesh...

And that was the last thing Dipper could remember before passing out.


	3. The Mindscape

**Yo! Did I mention that this was going to be a sort of Billdip? I'm still not sure if I'm going for friendship or actual romance but it could go either way seeing as I'm up to suggestions! I'm not sure how I feel about this chapter, seeing as it's a bit confusing and all, but it'll make more sense in Chapter 4. Yeesh! Chapter 4 already! Anyways, I'll probably edit this chapter later since it wasn't my favorite. Again, suggestions of what you want to see more of or less of are very much taken into consideration! Enjoy Chapter 3 for now y'all! **

Dipper woke up to an eye-full of yellow. Yellow bricks. Dipper looked up further, in shock, to see Bill hovering just above him, watching him. Dipper's eyes widened in shock and he slapped the stupid triangle hard enough to send him across the room.

"You!" Dipper sputtered, his face red hot in anger. Dipper whipped his head around his surroundings, confused to find himself all wrapped up in the covers of his bed. How did he get here?

It felt like deja vu, after coming back from the lake those weeks ago. He brought his hands to his eyes, in fear that they would start oozing again, but luckily it seemed like that whole thing was over.

For a moment after Dipper had shoved him, Bill looked surprised. Shocked, even. But he recovered quickly. "Yes, me," he replied idly.

"Care to elaborate?" Dipper hissed at the dream demon. Bill stared at Dipper. Dipper stared back.

"I mean, this!" Dipper guestured to his body. "What did you do to me?!" Bill took a moment to let out his familiar, scornful laugh. "Kid, you think I did this to you?"

"I know it was you! You're always doing horrible things to me, you isosceles monster!"

Bill winked. Or blinked. Dipper couldn't tell the difference. "For your information, Pine Tree, I'm a little more scalene." Bill waggled his eyebrow and ran his hands over and down his sides. Dipper flushed red.

"Mabel!" He shouted, hopping up from his bed, grabbing the baseball bat that he always kept behind his bed and pointed it at Bill, who began laughing hysterically. "Sure, call your sister, and use your bat to slay me." He narrowed his eyes, suddenly serious. "That'll really... work out." On the words 'work out', Bill's eye turned red and his voice grew demonic. Then he scoffed, "Now put the bat down before you hurt yourself, kid."

That was when Mabel crashed through the door. "Dipper! I was so worried about you, after you passed out on top of the roof! What happened?!" She crashed into him with a hug.

Dipper glared intensely at Bill through Mabel's hair, who looked rather bored, staring at the ceiling and flipping his cane. A little watch appeared on his wrist, and he looked at it once just to watch it poof away again.

"There's no time for this, Mabel! He's here!" "Who's here, Dipper?" Mabel asked after turning around the room suspiciously. For a moment, her eyes landed on Bill, who morphed into one of the scariest creatures Dipper had ever seen.

There was no reaction from Mabel, whereas Dipper flinched and waved the baseball bat in front of him like a mad man. "Mabel, get back!" He yelled. Bill morphed back and narrowed his eye, silently staring at Dipper while he tried to process what was going on.

"Quit the crap, Dipper!" Mabel yelled, knocking the bat out of his grip. Her face was red and tears pricked at her eyes. "Ever since we got back from the lake, you've been acting strange," she snapped. "I know something's going on, and it's not puberty! How dumb do you think I am?"

Dipper looked at Bill, then back to Mabel. "Bill!" Dipper exclaimed, pointing straight at the isoco- er, scalene triangle. "Bill Cipher is literally standing- floating- right there!" Mabel whipped her head around, and then looked back to Dipper. And finally, Mabel broke. Tears emptied from her eyes and her face became a mess.

"You think this is some sort of sick joke?" She cried. "I've been so worried about you lately! You can't lie to me, you know that! And I know that something really, really bad has been going on and I want to help you. Please, Dipper," Mabel begged.

"Yeesh. I thought you would have gotten it by now, seeing as you're the top of the brain chain around here these days," Bill finally said, after watching the girl break down. Dipper glared up at Bill. "Of course, I had no one to tell me what I'm about to tell you, but that shows you just how dumb you are," Cipher added with a hint of spite.

Dipper watched Bill in disbelief as he floated up to Mabel and ran a hand straight through her head, waving it out the other side. "You're in the mindscape, kid. Well, both the mindscape and reality."

And then he vanished through the wall.

Dipper waited, trying to make sense of what Bill had just said. He was in the mindscape- how was that possible?!

Everything was quiet, everything was gray- wait, gray? Dipper narrowed his eyes in concentration. Everything in the room slowly drained of its color; usually a sign that Bill was about to appear to them. So, why hadn't the room been drained when Dipper first saw Bill?

Mabel seemed to notice the loss of color. "Dipper-" she began but was interrupted by... Well, who else?

"Hello, hello, Shooting Star!" Bill chirped. "And my my, if it isn't my little Pine Tree! Oh, you've both grown so much!"

"I literally saw you two minutes ago!" Dipper yelled.

Bill shrugged. "Maybe in a different reality." His eye darkened red for a moment. "Never mind. I forgot about... that."

"Forgot about wha-" Before Dipper could even respond, Bill tapped his cane on the wall and the center of gravity was ripped to the right. Papers, books, beds, practically everything in the room tumbled, along with Dipper and Mabel.

Mabel fell onto a big pile of laundry, sock puppets, and papers, while Dipper braced himself to meet the wall with a hard force. But it never happened.

Bill flipped his hat off his head and held it out, and it grew to size as Dipper fell through it and seemingly disappeared. Dipper tumbled through Bill's dark hat, falling into an endless expanse of black.

Bill flipped his hat back on top of his head. "Well, things to do, places to go, Pine Trees to kidnap... See you around, Shooting Star!" And with that, the gray vanished, and so did Bill.

Dipper fell and fell. He was reminded of the Bottomless Pit, and reassured himself there had to be a bottom, and whatever was down there, it had to be better than anything he had gone through. He watched as suddenly, a speck of something other than black could be seen. And it was rapidly approaching, closer and closer... Dipper closed his eyes tight.

And then he hit the bottom.

It was surprisingly soft. And yellow. Dipper bounced a bit, taking a few calming breaths as he pulled himself up. "Oh, thank god. Yellow fluff." Dipper laughed, and sank back into the soft... Whatever it was. He had never been so thankful in his life, especially for something like yellow fluff.

Dipper took a moment to rest. Wherever he had fallen into, it felt safe. Despite there being no visible entrance or exit, it wasn't cramped. In fact, it was the opposite. It was a large, blank yellow room, with one giant, round window on what Dipper believed to be the north side.

And for some odd reason, he felt rather giddy. Happy, even. Whatever had been plaguing him the past two weeks, it didn't exist here. No fangs, green eyes, black goop.

He finally picked himself up and walked across the room to the window, which almost took up the entire wall. And finally, he reached it, climbing up onto the window sill and pressing his hands and face to the window to look out.

And all happiness and peace he had felt before instantly vanished.

It was the attic. Mabel was there. She was crying... The whole room was a mess, and everything was flush up against the right side of the room. The gravity was normal again, but everything in the room was out of place. And not only that, but the color of the room had returned. "Dipper? Bill!" Dipper heard her distant screams through the glass. The door flew open and Stan entered, bending down to hold Mabel while she cried.

A chill went down Dipper's spine. Where was he exactly?

Dipper stumbled back from the window, as realization dawned on him. He had fallen through Bill's hat... Hadn't he?

Dipper fell back from the window sill and his eye twitched as the large, stained black glass that he had first initially thought was decoration moved left, then right.

And then it blinked.

Dipper was looking through Bill's eye.

Dipper pressed a finger into the yellow mush once more, feeling sick again. Panic fluttered in his chest as he started yelling for help, banging on the yellow glass that seperated Dipper from his family. "Grunkle Stan! Mabel! In here! Look up!"

Dipper looked around the room in terror.

"I'm glad you find my guts comfortable, Pine Tree, because we're in for a loooong ride. And I'd appreciate it if you'd stop wriggling. Body spasms, you know?"


	4. The Multiverse

**Hey hey hey! New chapter ;D I'm excited for whoever's stalking my story to read this one, because it's coming together a little bit. This chapter was a little shorter than my others (which frustrated me :C ) because I'm trying to make them longer. life is hard. Anyways, it's kind of weird posting and writing a story like this! Before, I didn't worry about grammar, length or spelling but now I feel pressured. At least maybe I might finish this one, seeing as I have a bad habit of never finishing stories . okay enough about me. Review if you liked it or want to see something change about it! C: **

It had been about an hour when Dipper suddenly got suspiciously quiet. Bill, who had finally gotten used to the kid screaming, yelling, and punching his insides, noticed the silence like a punch to the face.

"Hey, kid. Why don't you ask me where I'm taking you?" Bill had grown increasingly bored. He thought Dipper might be a little more interested, or talkative. Curious, seeing as he gave him a nice big view of, well-

Bill sighed. Okay, maybe traveling across the plane of existence wasn't so interesting. It sounds interesting, but it's rather bland, really.

Rows and rows of doors filled the expanse of endless black, each labeled with things as simple as the number six or as complicated as sequences written in entirely different languages. Some not even from Earth.

"Knock knock." Bill tried again, knocking on one of the doors, labeled with 27 tally marks.

No answer. "You're supposed to say, 'who's there', if I knew a thing or two about you humans. Which I do," Bill added the last part quickly.

Still nothing.

"Fine, fine, if you really don't want to know..." Bill floated away from the door and continued on his vast search, before skidding to a hault, and racing back to the door, throwing it open.

"Hahhaha, check you out, Pine Tree!" At first, all there was was white light, but suddenly it shaped into images. And in the door was a frighteningly familiar memory.

It was the hottest day of the year, and everyone was down at the pool. Everything looked mostly normal. Mabel was stalking Mermando, Lil Gideon and Grunkle Stan were fighting over that stupid pool chair, and Dipper was-

"Turns out, you were a chick in another parallel. Not a lot's different between you and her." Bill snickered. "You still got the hots for Red."

And that's when Bill heard a distinct sob. "Shit," Bill muttered, slamming the door closed and continuing on through the multiverse. Now he had gone and upset the kid. Guilt tugged at whatever was left of his conscience. Dipper had been through a lot, and Bill was just poking at old scars.

Bill's original plan of holding Dipper captive almost like a mama kangaroo with a baby in her pouch was not going down well. The kid was distracting him from... important business.

Bill traveled quickly and quietly, passing doors upon doors, until he came up to one with a simple, small yellow triangle marking the door. For some reason, unlike most of the other doors, it's color was gray, and it looked to be festering away. It creaked when it opened, and the inside was the opening to the Mystery Shack.

Bill tipped his hat and Dipper tumbled out and hit the floor smack on his rump, his knees to his chest and his arms covering his face.

"Look, I can see why your upset-" Bill began, but Dipper cut him off. "Upset?! First, you go into Grunkle Stan's mindscape. Then you try steal my body and as if that's not enough, you start-" Dipper is cut off with a violent shudder. "-you start making me bleed, and grow fangs, and now, you kidnap me!"

Bill's eye went red with anger. "Kid, if I had wanted you dead, you would have been dead long ago." "See, that's just the thing!" Dipper stood up, and pointed his finger in Bill's face. "You don't want me dead! You want me to suffer!" Tears spilled down Dipper's face and dripped onto the floor. He wiped them away quickly, but they just kept coming.

"Think whatever you want, Pine Tree," Bill muttered tiredly, turning around for the door. "It's not like, I don't know, I'm trying to help you or anything."

"Help me?" Dipper scoffed, malice in his voice. "Last time you said that, you toke over my body. Why would you want to help me?"

"Because maybe, Dipper, I don't want what happened to me, to happen to you."

And with that, Bill slammed the door behind him.

Dipper took a step back in shock. After a moment, he shook his head, breaking out of his trance. He clomped up the stairs to the attic and threw himself in his bed. He looked up to see the exact same mold spots and even the identical scratches on the ceiling from Mabel's grappling hook, but the window outside was full of swirling, vast and empty fog, no sight of the forest beyond.

On a normal day, Dipper's brain would have been going a hundred miles an hour, but his mind had turned to gush after Bill's last words.

'Because maybe, Dipper, I don't want what happened to me, to happen to you.' Funny thing was, Dipper was more shocked that the demon had actually used his real name rather than Pine Tree or Kid, than the fact that Bill knew something about what was going on, and had maybe even gone through the same thing.

Was Bill telling the truth? Maybe he was trying to help. If he was... Dipper had been being a huge ass. But then he firmly shook his head. One of the first things he had read in his journal...

Trust no one. Of course, his sister was the one excuse, but he was pretty sure Dream Demons were far from the list of people he could trust. Especially from one who had just kidnapped him, and dropped him off in a replica of his home in who knows where.

Dipper rested in his bed for awhile. He was thankful, that at least wherever he was, he was somewhere familiar. It sure beat being stuck in Bill's body prison, with the squishy yellow walls. Which was extremely disgusting, now that Dipper thought about it more.

But as he tossed and turned, and was sure that hours had gone by, the window only ever let in gray light. No night, no day. Dipper wasn't really all that tired, or hungry either. But it just felt maddening, not being able to sleep. He just wanted to sink into the unconscious and let his mind just rest.

And finally, Dipper thought of something he hadn't before. He jumped out of bed and emptied out his sock drawer, which shockingly enough, held his journal. Dipper ripped it open and flipped through the pages, confusion dawning on him with every page. Front to back, filled up with the exact same information as the real one.

Confusion settled like a cloud over Dipper's head. How could someone make an exact replica of the Mystery Shack like this? He was pretty sure no one he knew could make a carbon copy this closely resembled, and his book proved it. How could someone get the information of every page in his journal down to the last word (and even invisible ink; Dipper had checked) and place it here, in this universe?

It was a different universe, wasn't it?

Dipper dropped the book and tried to pry open the window to no avail. He tried all the windows and doors, but there was only swirly mist.

Was he missing something? Feeling rather unsettled, Dipper went back up into his room. Instead of going to his bed, however, he jumped in Mabel's and fell among her stuffed animals and blankets.

Even her weird perfumey scent was among the covers, but despite the smell of flowers and candy and other gooey girly stuff, Dipper was glad for the feeling that his sister was near. "She would kill me if she ever knew I slept in her bed," Dipper wondered aloud, laughing quietly. And finally, finally, Dipper drifted off into an uneventful, gray sleep.


	5. Dreams

**Sup! Just letting y'all know, I'm not going to be updating so fast for the next week or so because finals suck. Seriously. So chapters will be up every two or three days now :( Believe me, it makes me sad too because I like writing this story. Anyways, I'm still debating which way this story will go with Bill and Dipper's relationship, but I guess whatever happens, happens at this point. On a lighter note... This chapter is almost 2,000 words! And I even had to split it into two chapters because it was getting too long. Yay for me c: Chapter 6 will be up soon, but for now, here's Chapter 5! **

Dipper twitched. He blinked a couple of times, until he finally realized he was managing the cash register, in no where else but the Mystery Shack. For a second he leaned back, and then he waved his arms and struggled not to fall off the stool he was perched on. He righted himself, and rubbed his eyes.

He looked around, rather disoriented, then shrugged and leaned across the desk, his head resting on his hand. His brown eyes scanned the shop, almost confused. Hadn't he been doing something before all this?

Soos was fixing up a lopsided table on one side of the shack and Mabel was, as always, tormenting one of the boys visiting the tourist trap. But something was out of place.

"Dipper, you okay?" Wendy asked, who was sitting next to him. He gave her a sideways glance and shrugged again. "I must've dozed off," he said blandly, his mind working sluggishly slow. He tried to think, but his mind couldn't pull thoughts together fast enough.

"Hahah, you're so funny Dipper!" Wendy cooed, slapping him on the back. Dipper gave her a weird stare, and he jumped off the stool and went to leave out the front door. "Wait, Dipper!" Wendy called, grabbing his wrist. "Maybe we should go out sometime."

Dipper's eyes widened, and then narrowed. "Thanks, but no thanks." He swept her wrist back, but she refused to let go. "Why not?" Wendy asked, dumbfounded. "I thought you liked me."

Then, something lit up in her eyes, and Dipper watched as they suddenly molded together to form one eye in the middle of her face. "Got your EYE on someone else, Pine Tree?"

"Enough!" Dipper shouted, and the instant he add contact with Wendy to shove her, his whole dream melted away and Dipper was sitting up in Mabel's bed, his hand disappearing as he punched through Bill. Literally straight through him. "Urrghh!" Dipper cried and yanked his hand back.

"Don't do that," Dipper snapped at Bill angrily, shaking the yellow substance off his hand, wrinkling his nose. Yellow was really starting to become his least favorite color. "You know she rejected me, and I'm over her, so why push it?" Dipper seethed. "I didn't know, honestly. I was just trying to have a little fun." Bill looked rather put down. Dejected. It was a weird look on him, and Dipper didn't know quite what to think about it.

Dipper squinted at the floating triangle, silently staring him down. After awhile, Dipper finally realized something. "You're not really the one behind this, are you?" Dipper asked softly.

Bill tipped his hat, and a slot machine appeared above their heads, ringing up three matching triangles and money rained from the ceiling. "We have a winner! Pine Tree finally gets it!"

"Cut the crap, Bill," Dipper complained and the money disappeared. "And don't call me that. You called me Dipper earlier, so I know you know my name."

Bill looked down at his finger's and poked them together nervously. "I did?"

"I have a name, Bill. Call me Dipper."

"Oh, I'll call you alright." Bill winked and handed Dipper a piece of paper with seven digits. Hearts surrounded it, along with Bill's name printed at the top with hearts to replace the dots in the i's. Dipper rolled his eyes and shoved it deep in his pocket, climbing out of Mabel's bed and marching angrily over to the triangle, pointing up at him.

"I have questions. Lots of them," Dipper said, then turned to face out the window. Bill floated over to Dipper and drew a gun, blowing his head out and playing dead. After a second, he slid open his eye a bit and whispered, "hit me with your best shot."

"Okay first, can you stop doing your weird magic stuff? It's distracting me," Dipper snapped, pushing him away to sit on the window sill. "Yeesh, okay, okay. But seriously, ask away." Bill finally settled down, his feet touching the floor. He tottered a bit, and then lead up against the side of Dipper's bed. "Man, gravity sucks."

"Where are we?" Dipper began. "How is there an exact replica of the Mystery Shack here? What's beyond the white mist stuff? How is the book even here, copied word for word?" Dipper spewed, even picking up and pointing at his journal before Bill held up his hands and quickly wove them around. "Woah, slow down! One question at a time. Sheesh."

"Where are we?" Dipper asked. "And why did you bring me here?"

"Well, seeing as telling you the truth couldn't really hurt.." Bill started, "This is one of the parallel universes behind one of those doors. If you remember earlier, I was trying to show you around a bit when you blew up at me, so if I can continue... without any interruptions..."

Dipper, just like as if he was back in school, had his hand above his head as he waited for Bill to call on him.

Bill groaned, floating up to kick back and relax. "Yes, Pine Tree?"

"It's Dipper."

Bill laughed. "I'm a being of pure energy. I know almost everything about everything. If I want to call you Pine Tree, I'm calling you Pine Tree. Cute that you think you could sway my opinion, though," Bill said as he floated down to pinch Dipper's cheek. He smacked his hand away and blushed.

"Quit it. Anyways... So my world... Universe-door-thing is just one parallel to all the hundred others out there?"

"Hundreds? Try trillions! I would say infinite, but infinite is actually impossible, according to the few laws around here," Bill scoffed. "But yes. Every world out there is different, and there are a lot of them. Yours is just a needle in a pine needle." Bill scratched his head. "Is that the right term?"

Dipper laughed. "It's 'needle in a haystack'. For claiming to be an all mighty being, you really don't know as much as you claim to."

Bill looked rather amused. "Did you really just say that to me? I should kill you for that," he mused, tapping his cane on the ground thoughtfully.

Not long ago, this sentence would have frightened Dipper to no extent, but now he laughed. And suddenly, he looked mischievous. "Quiz time, Dorito. What's this?" Dipper dug through his drawers and pulled out a couple of uncracked glow sticks, waving them in front of Bill's face.

Bill approached them almost warily, examining them with a squinty eye. Dipper cracked one and the color yellow filled the room. Bill tried to feign his surprise, but Dipper could see he was itching to crack one himself.

"Here," Dipper said as he tossed them to Bill, as he happily snapped away at them like a child on Christmas. Dipper kept the yellow one and spun it around with his fingers. "What... What is the purpose of these... Light things?"

Dipper grinned evilly and held the yellow one close to his face, the shadows creeping suddenly eerily across the room. "They're anal probes, Bill," and Dipper cackled evilly as Bill suddenly dropped them in horror.

"Oh man. Oh man, I need to go wash my hands for the next thousand years-" "Bill, wait!" Dipper laughed, catching onto the triangle's arm before he left the room. Bill looked down at Dipper in horror, and Dipper suddenly realized that Bill had really taken him seriously.

Dipper coughed uncomfortably as Bill's eye bore down on him. "They're just glow sticks. Used for parties." Bill looked at Dipper in obvious distrust, then eyed the fallen glow sticks on the floor. And suddenly, a spark of recognition crossed his eye and then he looked sheepishly back at Dipper. "I've got better things to do than look at stupid human inventions," he snapped, suddenly down to business again.

"Right now, we occupy a universe that died awhile back. It's kind of rare for them to just burn out, but stuff happens," Bill said with a shrug, his back on Dipper. "This universe turns into a dreamscape, where the people, or demons, inhabiting the area can do whatever they want, whenever they want, wherever they want. But it's kind of useless empty space, seeing as there's literally nothing here unless we create it ourselves," Bill said matter-of-factly. "So I whipped up a little Mystery Shack for you and voila!"

Dipper looked around the room. "No kidding. But how'd you get it down to the last detail? Including this?" Dipper guestured to his journal. "I thought you wanted to destroy it, not memorize it page for page."

Bill rolled his eye. "I spend a lot of time watching you, Dipper. What else does a Dream Demon have to do around here? Besides, you're interesting."

Dipper looked shocked. "Wait. You're saying you could explore the whole universe, and on top of that there are trillions of parallel universes that you could explore, yet you spent your time reading my journal over my shoulder?"

Bill laughed. "Don't think too highly of yourself, kid. You and your universe has always been a weird one. Although I do visit Universe 27 Tallymarks a lot." Bill winked again. Or blinked. It was hard to tell sometimes.

Universe 27 Tallymarks? Dipper thought hard for a second, and then a red blush settled over his face at Bill's innuendo. "Really?" Dipper asked. "Pervert."

"Oh, Dipper, Dipper, Dipper," Bill laughed. "Don't even start that with me. Remember: I'm always watching you." And this time, Dipper was sure he had winked. "And I know how you feel about me, kid. Really, I'm flattered. But don't you think, you know, I'm a couple too many thousand years older than you?" An even redder blush sat on Dipper's face as Bill seemingly grinned at him. Damn that triangle. "I do NOT think of you like that," Dipper stuttered. He cleared his voice. "Not even a bit," he added more sternly.

"Whatever," Bill said, turning is cane over in his hands, but Dipper could still hear the hint of laughter in Bill's voice. "Deny it you will, but I can read your thoughts, kid."

"It's not like that!" Dipper insisted, folding his arms in frustration. Of course, Dipper HAD been thinking about Bill, non-stop, for the past however long he had been stuck in the replica Mystery Shack. But that was Dipper just trying to understand what was going on! Nothing going on between them, nope. Not at all.

"Whatever you think," Bill said, and the seriousness filled the air once more. "Why'd you bring me here?" Dipper leaned his head against the window and hugged his knees to his chest, his arms holding them.

"Well, kid," Bill began, uncharacteristically serious. "You know as well as I do that something's really wrong with you. If you had spent any more time in your universe like that, your fam-sham and friends would have found out, and would have really flipped out. No need to thank me or anything, but it was me who cleaned you up on the roof top before your sister got a good look at you, although she was very suspicious of you."

Dipper looked surprised. "That was you?! Why are you helping me?"

"Long story, kid. Anyways, I'm going to just go straight to the point. You aren't going to really like it, but you need to know so maybe you can try to remember what happened at the bottom of the lake."

"Do you know what happened to me?" Dipper asked quickly, standing up quickly and started pacing.

"I might have an idea," Bill said tapping his finger on his chin, "But you're definitely not going to like it.


	6. Replacement

**Holy crap everyone I am so sorry. I've been so busy with finals and the end of the semester. I'm happy to say I passed all my classes though and my hard work was not for nothing! Glad that's over. Still, I won't be able to update as much as I did at first. And I want to assure y'all, I'm not dead and I do plan on finishing this story. So here's a 3000 word Chapter 6! *squee* Chapter 7 should clear up a lot of the confusion. Also, chapter 7 will be introducing Human!Bill! So there's some excitement. Enjoy! **

"C'mon, Pine Tree, there's a lot you have to learn and you have a short time to learn it." Bill floated out of the attic. Dipper jumped off the window sill and raced after him. "Wait! What do you mean by that? What-" Dipper ran into Bill at the bottom of the stairs, and Bill turned around, angry. "What did I just say? You have a lot to learn, and you're just going to have to deal with a little bit of confusion for awhile. And you're going to have to trust me. Okay?" Dipper looked doubtful. "I mean it, Pine Tree. I know I haven't been the most trustworthy demon around, but I'm all you've got if you want to get out of this. Okay?" Dipper nodded silently.

Bill led them to the front door of the Mystery Shack, opening it to the black void and endless doors. Dipper peaked his head out nervously and looked right and left. As far as he could see were rows upon rows of doors. When he looked straight down, there was nothing but endless black.

Bill shoved Dipper out the door, and for a few terrifying seconds the boy fell, until he realized he could float just like in Grunkle Stan's dreamscape and when Bill took over Dipper's body. Dipper shot a glare at Bill, who was already floating away. "Really? You tell me to trust you and then you-" Dipper cut off while Bill opened a door, and he finally caught up with him.

"In this universe, Mabel and you have a third twin. This twin exists in a lot of these parallels, but in most of them he dies early of some sickness or other." Dipper seemed at a loss for words as he stared through the door at his sibling. He looked almost identical to Dipper, but he had shorter hair and was smaller than Dipper, but there he was, running around, reliving the same adventures in Gravity Falls by his side.

"Universes really vary, but in every single one, there are certain rules that they follow. In the beginning, all these doors started out as blank space, all up until the guy in the box pushed a little red button labeled 'start'," Bill said, pointing up way above to a box among all the doors. Bill slammed the door closed and brushed his hands off. "He's the guy behind the whole show. The whole multiverse. Some would call him God, but I've never seen the guy myself so I guess it doesn't matter much."

Dipper just looked shocked. "So there is a god."

"Oh, sure, he's definitely our one and only savior," Bill waved his hand and rolled his eye. "Try to stay focused here, Pine Tree. We've got stuff to do."

"Now, these universes change every so often. It all comes down to the precise decision point. Let's say a little kitty cat wanders into the middle of a street, and a car comes barreling down. The universe comes to a stop and makes a decision- either Whiskers gets run over by a car, or its kitty's lucky day and it doesn't."

"So in one universe where the cat survives, in another it dies?" Dipper concluded, raising an eyebrow. Bill nodded. "Oh yes, Dipper, but it gets much more complicated. Maybe in one universe, the cat does get hit, but it survives and lives another day. Or in another, the driver swerves, hits a tree, and dies. Usually, universes are split into hundreds of different outcomes, each partaking in a different universe. Some outcomes are more likely than others, like the cat dying. So, sometimes multiple universes follow the same route. That's why there are some parallels which are almost identical, like you being born with an extra X chromosome instead of a Y, but everything else is mostly the same. And then there are other parallels, where aliens rule planet Earth."

"How does time work?" Dipper asked, floating over to a different door and opening it. His hand itched to turn the little knob- now that Dipper looked closer, there was an exact time and date, inbetween the beginning of the multiverse to what was labeled 'present time'. But before he could touch it, Bill slammed the door shut, his eye narrowed. He flicked Dipper's nose. "No touching."

"Ouch!" Dipper's hands flew to his face and he rubbed his nose in irritation. And then, he sneezed. "Adorable, kitten," Bill called back at Dipper, who was frowning. Dipper was about to speak again when Bill yet again interrupted him. "Time doesn't exist. It's just something that humans made up, and something that literally controls their lives. Pitiful, really. But yes, your universe moves on without you, and Mabel and Stanford are doing their best to find you. Even though there's no way they could," Bill rolled his eye and grabbed Dipper's hand before he could try to open another door.

"Look, Pine Tree..." Bill fixed his bow tie and took off his hat, facing Dipper awkwardly. "I'm just going go lay it on straight. Your existence is rather.. Uncanny. In every universe, there is matching soul. There's a Mabel in every universe, whether she dies in the womb, is born with two heads, lives to a hundred years... You, however, are a different case. You haven't died in any parallels... That is, not until up till now."

Bill nervously cleared his throat. "When you sank to the bottom of the lake... So did every other you in every other universe. And there was only one path the multiverse layed out for you."

Realization dawned on Dipper as they came across a door, dirty and broken looking, just like the one with the triangle on it.

But instead of a triangle labeling the front, was a little, sad looking, lonely blue pine tree. Dipper's mouth fell open as he stared at the door.

"Dipper... You died down there. You drowned. Every parallel out there did... All of them." Bill shook his head. "I checked every one."

Dipper rested his hands on the cracked door. It was withering away, and when he looked at his hands they were covered in dust and splinters. "Whatever happened down there changed all of space and time, and now your universe is unstable."

Dipper couldn't take his eyes off the door. Behind it was all he knew and everything he loved. And it was slowly rotting. "You were supposed to die down there. But because you're here and breathing, your universe is broken. And every minute your existence continues, the more the universe deteriorates."

"How do we stop it?" Dipper asked, tears in his eyes. "Does this mean that if my universe dies, everyone in it dies too?"

Then, Dipper got angry. "Why are you helping me? Why do you care what happens to me or my universe? Looks like there are plenty of others out there for you to torment."

Dipper reached for the door handle to leave when suddenly, the whole multiverse started to shake. It was soft at first, but erupted into violence a few seconds later. A loud growl tore through the air, and suddenly Bill was screaming at him. "Go! Get out of here!"

Dipper didn't need to be told twice. He ripped open his door and flew inside, tumbling through white expanse for a few moments until the world formed around him.

It was hot outside. Dipper could feel the sun faint on his skin, and the air muggy around him, but something was off. Instantly, he felt something claw at his belly. Stumbling around what he now realized was the forest right outside of the mystery shack, Dipper found his reflection in an almost dried up stream.

Green eyes. Ghostly green.

Dipper steeled himself and stepped around the stream and back to the Shack. He was just about to open the door when Mabel burst through, laughing. "Mabel!" Dipper called, but Mabel passed right by him- or, rather, right through him. Dipper shuddered and managed to get to the side when the second figure ran out the door. Dipper felt chilled as he started at the stunning image of his self. At first, he was pissed. "Bill! I swear to God, if you took over my body again-"

And then what next happened scared Dipper to no end. "I bet I can swim faster than you at the lake!" Mabel shrieked as she and Dipper fought in the car. "Alpha twin! Alpha twin!"

"Mabel! I already grew that millimeter back!" Dipper grunted as he tried to shove his sister off of him, who was attempting to tickle him.

This was the morning that Dipper had gone to the lake.

Ghost Dipper floated and phased through the car, settling in the middle seat and waited for Soos and Grunklestan, who were about to leave the front door. Dipper waited silently, then tensed up when the car doors were ripped open. And then he remembered Wendy was joining them in the back seat, right where he was sitting.

If he had felt uncomfortable just sitting next to Wendy on the ride up there the first time, Ghost Dipper couldn't imagine sitting with half of him phased into her. Dipper crouched under Mabel's legs instead.

And soon, they were there; Grunkle Stan breaking through the gate that was supposed to lock them out, Soos pulling the boat into the water, and himself and Mabel splashing in the water.

Dipper floated above him and his sister, following them around anxiously as he waited for...it... to happen. He watched as past Dipper climbed out of the water, picked up his journal, and after a minute or two, started running and screaming down the dock.

"Get out of the water!" Past Dipper screeched, waving his arms madly at the edge of the dock, just to watch Soos pour another crate of fish food into the water. Dipper watched as a shadow started to appear under the shimmering lake surface, making its way over to the boat which now held his whole family on top.

Dipper watched in horror, pulling his hair out, as a giant tentacle erupted from the murky waters and snaked its way around the boat, shattering it and pulling parts of it under. And he couldn't take it anymore. Dipper launched himself into the water and started swimming madly over to the wreckage. The first person he ran into was Wendy, who was sputtering and clinging to part of the ship. Soos sat on a bigger part of the wreckage just beyond, not daring to put a toe into the water. "What is that?!" Wendy cried as another tentacle appeared and tried to smash them.

"Come on!" Dipper grabbed Wendy's hand and started swimming back to the dock, Soos on their heels. As soon as they reached the dock, Dipper was back in the water and swimming as fast as he could, looking for his sister and Grunkle Stan. "Mabel! Mabel?" Dipper swam around what was left of the ship, panic gripping at his heart. "Dipper!" Mabel's voice sounded weakly from the biggest part of the wreckage; and Dipper clambered up onto the boat to race up to Grunkle Stan, who had hold of Mabel's arms and was trying to pull her out from where part of the boat had fallen on her legs.

"I can't get her out," Stan said desperately. Dipper stared at Mabel, who was crying and trapped, before grabbing one of her arms and pulling. It only made her cry harder. "Don't leave me don't leave me alone!" She wailed.

Dipper let go and crouched near his sister and reassuringly patted her shoulder. "It's okay, Mabel," he said half heartedly, trying to convince even himself. "We're not going anywhere."

And that's when the Lake-Bottom monster surfaced for the first time. It had rows upon rows of teeth, and tentacles. Brown, ugly fat tentacles. It let out a long, unsettling moan, before assaulting the whole lake, slapping its tentacles down in angry motions to try and drown the last of his victims.

Dipper looked up just in time to see a tentacle fall down right on top of them, and he had just enough time to jump to the left before hitting the water. It filled his mouth, nose, eyes.. Dipper found the surface quickly and choked out, "Mable?!"

The largest part of the ship was gone, other than a few wooden boards here and there, and Mabel was no where in sight. "Dipper!" Mabel shrieked, and Dipper was surprised that her voice had come from above, until he realized that Mabel was in the Lake-Bottom monster's clutches.

"Ohmigosh Mabel! Don't worry I'm coming!" Dipper wasn't lying. He started swimming towards the monster, just to be snatched up by one of the tentacles. Dipped squirmed in its grip, closing his eyes as the monster flailed its tentacles. Mabel's scream sounded from the left, then the right, and Dipper held his hands over his mouth to keep from puking. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small pocket knife, holding it with shakey hands before plunging it deep into one of the suckers on the tentacle, digging it in deep and twisting it around. Orange liquid sputtered from the wound and the monster shrieked, but only held onto Dipper harder, squeezing the life out of him. The knife flew from Dipper's hands and fell down, down below to the lake.

And then, as Dipper prayed for dear life, he caught sight of Soos and Grunkle Stan on his old, wooden shabby fishing boat. Grunkle Stan looked grim; Soos sickly. And Dipper then heard the familiar rev of a chainsaw, and then the monster was screaming. Dipper watched just in time to watch the Lake-Bottom monster drop Mabel before he was dragged towards the water.

Panic fluttered in his heart as he tried to gasp one last breath before hitting the water. Then, everything was black.

Ghost Dipper watched on. Anxiety dragged in his heart as he watched Grunkle Stan rip into the monster's tentacle that was holding Mabel with the chainsaw, and the devastation in his eyes as he watched Dipper get dragged under the water.

'Only one thing to do left,' Dipper thought as he dove after his body under the water. He watched his terrified eyes, open wide under the water as he tried to catch a glimpse of anything other than black. For a second, his terrified self looked directly into his eyes, before tearing away.

Bubbles erupted from past Dipper's mouth as he screamed, getting pulled further, and further under the water. Dipper watched hopelessly as the life fell from his eyes. They had reached the bottom of the lake, and the monster had released Dipper's body. And he sank.

Dipper watched. And watched. And watched. Then, carefully, he floated over to his lifeless body. Curiously, he placed his hand over his own head, which had long ago lost it's hat.

His eyes blinked open, and Dipper flinched back, his butt landing on the soft sand on the bottom of the lake. It clouded up around him, and all he could see was glowing green eyes.

"Weeellllll! Fancy seeing you here, Dipper." The voice that erupted from his past body sent shivers down his back. It was distorted, and sounded- just wrong. "I assume that Bill has probably gotten to you by now, huh? No other way you could be here right now, because you're in HERE right now," he laughed, tapping his head. "Unless Bill's 'helping' you. Funny," Green-Eyes said, "if I hadn't gotten to you first, he surely would have taken this lovely, lovely opportunity."

"What are you talking about?" Dipper accused, pointing his finger at his past self, narrowing his eyes. "It's you who's doing this to me, isn't it?"

Green-Eyes looked surprised. "You don't know?" Then he looked delighted. "What a blessing! I get to do the pleasure of ruining your life. Or death? Uh, afterlife. Death thing. Cause you're half dead. Um." Green-Eyes shook his head, then looked up at Dipper mischievously, holding out his hand. "Hi! My name is Asha Relitty. I'm as old as the universe, and I'm personal friends with the guy upstairs." He waggled his eyebrows. "People have a lot of different names for me. Most popular is 'one of God's Angels'," he said with a roll of his eyes, and a sudden grin, "but I prefer Reality Demon."

"My goal for centuries has been to find me a replacement. See, my job is to keep a balance to the worlds. Keep bad things from happening, and sometimes keep good things from happening. And let me tell you, it gets tiring after awhile! Especially keeping track of that Bill guy. He's always causing trouble," Asha cracked his back and stretched, sighing enviously. "Personally, I liked the Dream Demon before him, but he found himself a replacement, just like all Demons have to."

"But you!" Asha yelped happily. Dipper looked up under the brim of his hat, and Asha just looked at him triumphantly. "You took the deal that I've been trying to make for centuries, because you were just too darn afraid dying. It's not that bad, you know," Asha said with a wink. He slunk over to Diper and ran a hand under his chin, tilting his head up. Asha whispered into his ear gently. "I would know. I finally get to bite the dust after all this time. Sweet, sweet release. And you, little 'Pine Tree', get to take my place."

"That's MY nickname for him," a voice growled from behind Dipper, and Dipper was yanked back by a familiar hand, none other than our infamous little yellow triangle. Suddenly, Asha's cheery demeanor went sour.

"Bill." Asha said sourly. "Why can't you just leave him alone? Are you just getting back at me because you didn't get to him first? Great, now I have to stick around awhile longer to make sure Dipper is turned successfully," Asha groaned.

Dipper's head snapped towards Asha in disbeliefe. "What do you mean by that?" Bill's hand gripped tighter on Dipper. "Come on kid, it's time to go."

Dipper let himself be dragged for a few moments, before Asha called, "It means Bill would have tried to make the deal with you if I hadn't. He would have tried to make you the next Dream Demon."

"What?!" Dipper tried to pry Bill's hand off his arm, looking back at Asha. "Do what you want with him, Bill," Asha smiled and waved as Bill slowly brought him back to the door that would exit them from his universe. His life. Or half life. Death. Whatever.

"But you know there's no saving him. It happened to you, and now it'll happen to him." Asha cackled, and the last thing Dipper saw before fading into white was bright, unusual green eyes staring into him.


	7. lol i hate naming chapters

**FINALLY DONE! Jeez this chapter took awhile! I didn't know exactly what I wanted to happen next but I think I've got an idea now. By the way! If you want to know kind of what Bill looks like in this story, look up a character named Dio from a game called Mad Father. That's what I imagine him kind of looking like, plus a little gravity defying top hat and cane. Also! Due to popular demand and my own opinion, the relationship between Bill and Dipper is just going to be friendship, with implied romance because Bill really just likes teasing Dipper. So kind of one sided. Sorry to anyone who was hoping for BillDip! Enjoy chapter whatever number we're on! I think seven! Yes!**

"What the hell!" Dipper screamed as Bill dragged him back into the multiverse. Bill shoved him particularly hard and Dipper spun a few times through space before righting himself, flinging himself furiously at Bill.

"You done yet?" Bill was folding his arms, his eye narrowed angrily as Dipper's fists, swinging madly, passed right through him like a holograph. Dipper paused for a moment to catch his breath, but didn't try again. All he did was watch Bill murderously. "Good." Bill said with a roll of his eye.

Bill grabbed him again and pulled him along across the multiverse. Dipper started struggling again until Bill skidded to a stop back in front of the old door with the yellow triangle on it.

Bill pulled the door open and shoved Dipper inside. Dipper stumbled, but recovered quickly. He looked up and around the room he occupied. At first, he felt cramped. They were no longer in the Mystery Shack, but a little room. It was rather small, but on second look it was more or less cozy. The whole room gave off a cabin-in-the-woods feel to it, complete with the fresh smell of pine and creaky wooden walls. Two large hammock sat in the right back corner, bunk bed style, and a messy desk that was covered with papers took up the rest of the back wall, along with a window. Dipper looked out the window to see faded white. On first look, Dipper dismissed it as the swirly mist from the replica Mystery Shack, but at second glance Dipper recognized it as falling snow.

On the right of the room was a bookshelf that covered nearly the entire wall; the hammock was tucked neatly behind it and beside the desk. It was filled with old books, papers, and trinkets of all sorts, and on the left was an old fashion chimney with a fire, along with a door that was closed tight.

Dipper heard Bill step inside the room and close the door to the multiverse behind him, along with the click of the lock. Dipper's heart rate shot up as he realized he was trapped. "You better start explaining, Bill, or I swear I'm going to-" Dipper turned around and his eyes went wide.

Standing just a few steps away from Dipper was a tall, lanky-looking boy. He couldn't have been older than 18, and his skin was sickly pale. He was wearing a tanish-white button down shirt that had a few darks stains on it, but looked freshly washed and maybe even ironed. He sported brownish-black suspenders to hold up his pants, which were tearing at the knees. He was barefooted, and held a black cane in one hand, and wore a little black top hat on top of the messy set of blonde hair on his head. The moment Dipper made eye-contact with him, a devilish look appeared in his eyes and his mouth split into a large toothy grin.

"Bill?" Dipper asked, at a loss for words.

"In the flesh. Literally this time." He sounded different. That was one of the first things Dipper really toke notice of. His usual annoying voice was toned down a notch, and he almost sounded a little more human. Almost. Bill took off his hat and placed it on the coat rack behind the door, leaning his cane against the wall.

"Give me one good reason I can still trust you," Dipper started, not letting Bill's new image throw him off topic. Bill looked up at him in surprise. "So you're taking Asha's words over mine? Dipper, I'm hurt," Bill placed a hand over his heart dramatically. "Especially after everything we've been through!"

"Yeah, like you even have a heart," Dipper muttered, and again Bill clutched at his chest. "Ouch, Pine Tree. Seriously." Dipper took a few moments to take Bill's accusation into consideration, and found maybe a millimeter more trust in the wanna-be triangle than Dipper's keeper Asha. But still, that didn't mean Dipper trusted Bill at all. He just trusted him more than Green-Eyes. "What happened to your eye?" Dipper finally asked, letting go a morsel of his anger from before.

Part of Bill's face was wrapped in white bandages, even his whole left eye. His fluffy bangs hung over and covered most of it up, but it was still highly noticeable that something was wrong. His other eye stared back at Dipper, and Bill held a hand over his mouth as he tried to hide his smirk. "Well Pine Tree, that's kind of a... personal question to ask." The color of his eye was a dark amber, almost even an orange. Bill took a step closer to Dipper, smile and all.

Dipper backed up as much as he could (it was kind of a small room, after all) as Bill came closer, and finally he sat back on the hammock. He tipped over a bit, until Bill quickly sat down next to him to keep it from toppling.

Dipper laid perpendicular on the hammock, closing his eyes, his legs resting on the floor to keep it from tottering as Bill got comfortable next to him. Dipper opened his eye a bit just to see Bill staring at him. Carefully, Bill looked him up and down, then back again, and winked. Dipper smacked his forehead with his hand and released a groan. "My head hurts just looking at you. What are you, sixteen? Seventeen? Don't you have better things to do than flirt with me?"

"Fifteen, actually," Bill pronounced smugly. "Same as Red. So we, as a couple, would be seen as socially unacceptable, would it not? Oh and give or take a couple thousand years, seeing as I've been a Dream Demon for quite awhile now."

"Don't forget the Y chromosome part," Dipper added quickly, trying not to let the demon's teasing get to him and letting his eye's slide shut as his brain tried to process. "I'm not even mad anymore. I just want to know what's happening, and why. No more jokes, Bill. Please."

Bill sighed and rolled his eye. "But where would the fun in that be?" That earned a glare from Dipper. "Yeesh, okay. Jeez. Ready for the sob story?" He stood up and walked over to the window and stared out into the false world.

"When I had barely turned fifteen, I went through the same humbo-jumbo you went through. The stars and planets alligned, all my parallels died at the same time, blah blah blah, and I met this funny guy named Azazel. He told me that the guy in the clouds had big plans for me and that I could live forever, so what else was I gonna say? Next thing I know, I wake up and everything hurts. Despite the glowing blue eyes and the whole transformation thing, I was back and alive in my own universe. And I thought it would be happily ever after."

Bill cracked his knuckles and heaved another sigh. "I didn't know what I had done. Heck, it wasn't even a month in my universe until it couldn't handle my existence anymore, since I was kind of defying all the laws of the universe, and it exploded. Everything was blinding white. I felt like I was on fire. I tried to tear my eyes out, hence the bandages." Bill waved his hand at his face mockingly, then collapsed at his desk and spun around in the swivel chair. "It was insanity." He spun around a few more times.

"I woke up outside of my universe, but when I tried to open the door but all it did was show the past. And when I opened it to the present, it was just blank. Azazel was gone, and I was the new Dream Demon. One of God's angel's." Bill snickered.

"I am to Dream Demon as Lucifer is to Angel. If you're into analogies and such. Which you are." Bill snapped at the last part when Dipper looked confused. Bill looked pointedly at Dipper for a few seconds before frowning a bit. "Okay, let me explain."

"See, the guy in the box needed a few poor souls to do his dirty work, so he created beings that were given special abilities to look after all the rest of the maggots of the universe. A couple of examples of these beings in your culture would be known from the twelve zodiacs to even the four horsemen of the apocalypse. Seven deadly sins and seven heavenly virtues; all different demons or angels. Even a couple of guardians out there to watch over a person in danger... Anyways, all the original creations rebelled because they were sick of their jobs after an eternity. So God gave them a chance to be relieved of their duties. So the job is passed down. However, it's kind of hard to find a person willing to take your place. They have to... Fit the job description. So every once in awhile, a certain human following a certain description or two will be removed from all parallels at once and one lucky guy from one of those universes will be selected to be the guy."

Dipper stared at Bill. "What are the odds, huh?" Bill exclaimed. "Bad luck, kid," he then said a bit more sympathetically.

"Woah, woah, wait." Dipper waved his hands in the air. "You're telling me you were chosen as the next Dream Demon. Otherwise known as Satan? Ruler of chaos and destruction? Fallen angel?"

Bill shrugged, then grinned mischiviously. "So I had some slightly homocidal tendencies. Big deal," Bill scoffed. "But just so you know, kid, you haven't really got perfect wings and a halo to go with. You could have taken my place too, which means I'm not the only sinner here. And Virgo's, but she wasn't too interested. Oh, and Asha's of course."

"Great. Well, it brings me great comfort that the bane of God is helping me. Sadist," Dipper said accusingly, pointing a finger at Bill's face. "I'm more of a masochist, actually," Bill purred, scooting the chair over to where Dipper was stationed, and Dipper kicked the chair away and sent him spinning. "Bite me," Dipper responded scornfully. "With pleasure," Bill growled, licking his lips.

"You are impossible!" Dipper exclaimed in disbelief, watching Bill out of the corner of his eye, but he couldn't help but let out a small, frustrated laugh. Despite Bill's suddenly friendly demeanor and change of character, Dipper still couldn't help but feel slight distrust. If there was one thing Dipper knew about Bill, it was that he always had a motive to his actions. He doesn't just do things to be nice.

"So let me guess. Asha is out there somewhere looking for us, because if he doesn't get me back in my universe and finish changing, I won't become the next Reality Demon and he doesn't get to rest?" Dipper asked, swinging the hammock.

"Yahtzee. And if he does get you back in your universe, the damn thing won't be able to handle the pressure of your existence, and it'll go bye bye and so will he." Bill rolled out of the chair and laid on the floor, his back on the ground, looking up at the ceiling fan. Bill's eye twitched as he watched the blades go around and around and around.

"And that's what that earth-quake thing earlier was, wasn't it? Asha was trying to find me," Dipper realized. Then nervously, he asked, "Can he find us here?" Bill gave Dipper a sideways glance and paused, pondering. He then gave a slight shake of his head. "No. Not for awhile, at least."

There was a long silence that filled the room. The only sound was the small pitter patter of the snow on the roof and the ceiling fan. "Asha said I didn't just 'fit the description', but you WANTED me as your replacement," Dipper said, a small questioning tone on the end of his sentence. "Is that true?"

Bill rolled over on his stomach, folding his hands under his chin. "Oh, more than anything. I miss my family, and my world. Even after searching for centuries I've never found a world just like it."

"You had a family?" Bill deadpanned and gave Dipper a long look. "Then why didn't you do it?" Dipper asked to cover up his mistake in asking Bill something he's regret. "I mean, you could have."

"I didn't want to put you through what I went through. I wouldn't pin that on anyone. I know I'm not the most trustworthy guy or the kindest, but I'd rather fester than ruin someone else's afterlife." Bill looked at his fingernails in mild interest, scraping them on his already scuffed up shirt.

"Imagine my surprise when I hear it from an old poltergeist friend what Asha had done to you. I thought you died at the bottom of that lake for good. Sure, you could have been mine or Virgo's replacement, but I didn't know you could handle Asha's job."

Bill sighed blissfully on the ground, "besides, my job is way too awesome to give up. I'm not tethered to any dumb rules like the others. Poor Death. I couldn't even imagine how boring it would be to have to help humans through the veil every three seconds."

"But you are tethered," Dipper wondered aloud. "You're a DREAM Demon. You've only ever shown up in my dreams, or when you put the universe on pause and turned everything gray." Bill groaned. "Yeah, there's that. But I work my way around it with my demon deals and all. Temptations, like Eve and the Apple. You, however," Bill glared at Dipper enviously. "You're a soon-to-be Reality Demon. You can do and see whatever you want, whenever you want. Dreams or no dreams. That's why you could see me when Mabel couldn't, by the way. Of course, you have to occasionally, well, KILL someone or destroy a universe here or there to keep 'the balance' but it's better than some of the others. Man, I'm so glad Azazel showed up all those years ago instead of Pestilence, or Gluttony. Of all the horrible jobs out there, I would kill myself if I-"

Dipper punched Bill in the face, and this time, it hit. "Ouch, Pine Tree," Bill whined as he held his jaw, looking up to see the face of wrath.

"Are you kidding me?" Dipper yelled. "I didn't ask for this! I just want to go back to my universe! My world! With Mabel, and Soos, and Wendy!" Dipper went in for another punch, and his fist connected with Bill's mouth. Blood dripped from a cut on his lips and Bill just laughed, dabbing a finger to his lip and staring at the blood distantly. "Oh man. Pain. It's just... So... Funny." On the word funny, Bill's eye flashed blue for a brief second before he snapped back to the present.

"Kid, don't take this out on me," Bill mumbled, sitting up straight to stare evenly into Dipper's eyes. "You were the one who agreed to Asha's deal."

"I didn't know what I was doing," Dipper said in defeat, his moment of rage long gone. He flopped back onto the hammock face down and just laid there. Bill watched him and coughed awkwardly, standing up and walking over to him. He sat down and put an awkward hand on Dipper's shoulder. "If it makes you feel any better, I didn't know either. And I know you didn't ask for any of this. I mean, who actually wants to die?" Bill laughed nervously. Dipper didn't respond.

Bill stretched his hand over and plucked off Dipper's hat, and ruffled his hair softly. Dipper still didn't move. Then, Bill poked him in the side.

Still quiet.

"Look, Dipper," Bill sighed, standing up and brushing the outfit away until he was back in his old attire. "There's nothing I can do to take you back to your old life. But I do think I know a way to stop your universe from imploding on itself at the least."

Dipper sat straight up. "Are you serious?" Bill rubbed the back of his neck and played with his bandages. "Uh, maybe." Bill leaned back in alarm. Dipper looked like he was about to burst. "No promises though," Bill said quickly before

Dipper sat up and hugged Bill tight around the middle. Bill's shoulder's hunched and he awkwardly raised his hands up. "Uh- um. Dipper," Bill panicked, and finally, the kid released him. "Sheesh, don't do that to me," Bill complained, a blush settled across his cheeks. "I'M the one supposed to make the innuendo's around here, am I clear?"

"Let's go!" Dipper almost shouted, struggling to get untangled from the hammock, but Bill blocked the way. "No way. Asha's out there looking for you right now. It's best if we lay low and get some shut-eye." Dipper sat back into the hammock, frustrated but understanding. "Besides. It's been awhile since you've let your meatbag rest. You're half demon now, but you're still half human."

"I call top bunk," Bill said, and a second later he was all snuggled up, blanket, pillow, teddy bear and all. "It's been around a hundred years since I've actually slept," Bill mumbled sleepily, pulling the blanket up happily to his chin. "Kind of ironic, being a Dream Demon and not actually dreaming myself. God knows I need a couple hours."

Outside the cabin, dusk fell through at Bill's will, and the long, weak sunbeams that fell through the window was now cold moon light, inching along the wooden floor as the night progressed. Yet Dipper lay awake. Dipper blinked slowly as he watched the fire that had been reduced to a couple of glowing embers. He pulled his dark blue vest closer to his chest as he tried to gain warmth that only just seemed to elude him.

After ages of shivering, Dipper jumped when something warm folded on top of him. "Jeez kid, if you were cold you could have just said something," Bill grumbled as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes and looked down at Dipper from his perch above. Dipper looked back distantly and Bill just rolled his eye, pulling another blanket out of nowhere for himself and turning away. "We'll figure this out in the morning, Pine Tree, okay?"

"Yeah... In the morning," Dipper responded monotonously, pulling the blanket over his shoulder, closing his eyes, and giving in to the black void known as slumber.


End file.
